recipes

How To Repurpose Leftovers

/ ktbuchs87

FoodStorage_tip

I am a big believer in leftovers.  I think that they play a big role in eating good, healthy meals all week long, as well as helping keep food costs down.  I only cook for two people, but I tend to cook like there are four of us and make extras to have for lunches throughout the week.  One thing that I have noticed though is that people tend to get bored of eating the same thing over and over again.  If you get bored with having the same food, you might be more likely to switch back to your unhealthy eating habits.  Because we don’t want that, I wanted to share just a few ways that you can repurpose your leftovers and make a whole different meal with just a few minor adjustments.

 

 

Meats 

This might be one of the easiest things to turn into a different meal.  Summer time is the perfect time to pull out the grill and BBQ some meat.  When you do this, make sure to throw a few extra pieces of whatever you’re making onto the grill.  Now you have some extra meat to turn into lunches or dinners for the week.

  • Shred chicken or pork and make a stir fry by adding it to some vegetables, brown rice, and soy sauce.
  • Slice up steak or chicken and add to a salad
  • Use fish to make some simple fish tacos.  Just add some salsa or corn, cilantro, and squeeze a little lime juice over everything
  • Make a chicken salad with shredded chicken, celery, avocado and mustard
  • Add any kind of meat to a frittata

Vegetables

If you do your meal prep over the weekend, make sure that you cook up some extra vegetables however you like.  Grill, roast, or saute them and you can use them for meals throughout the week.  Summer time also means the garden is full and your farmers market is in full swing, so you might be loaded up with extra vegetables.  Here are some ways you can repurpose your vegetables for leftovers.

  • Roasted root vegetables, like sweet potatoes or parsnips, can be added to salads or cooked grains for a simple lunch
  • Root vegetables are also really good pureed into soup or a sauce for pasta.  Add almond milk (or whatever milk you like) for an extra creamy texture
  • Grilled eggplant can be made into a simple baba ganush
  • Grilled zucchini or summer squash can be added to tomato sauce for extra texture and flavor
  • Cooked vegetables can be added to stir frys, soups, frittatas, or sandwiches
  • If you have an overabundance of cooked vegetables, you can also freeze them to be used later

 

Grains

Grains are a great thing to cook in big batches and then just add to meals throughout the week.

  • Grains make a really good bed for stir fry, vegetables with sauce, or cooked meat
  • Add your favorite grain to a leafy salad for a new variation
  • Leftover pasta?  Use it up by making cold pasta salad.  Toss your favorite pasta with some olive oil, seasonings, and vegetables like cherry tomatoes or avocados for a delicious summer meal
  • Try adding cooked grains to your lettuce wrap for extra texture and oomph

 

Fruit

Fruit is also pretty abundant this time of year and you can make it into a few different meals throughout the week.

  • Use leftover fruit salad as a cereal, granola, or yogurt topper for breakfast
  • Freeze leftover fruit and use in smoothies or added to water for extra flavor
  • Make a quick toast topping by mashing up leftover berries and adding a little honey/cinnamon
  • Turn frozen leftover fruit into sorbets by blending them in a high powered blender or food processor

 

There are a ton of ways that you can vary your leftovers so that you don’t eat the exact same meal every single day of the week.  With just a little bit of prep work, you can have the makings of a healthy and new meal each day.  Get creative and see what you can make out of the meals in your fridge!

Moussaka Over Toasted Millet

/ ktbuchs87

Moussaka is a dish that I had heard of, but never seen or eaten.  I knew that it had it’s origins in Greece and other Mediterranian countries and I knew that it had to do with eggplant.  That’s about it.  The grocery store had a sale on eggplant recently and I was trying to figure out what to make with it.  Then I remembered moussaka and started looking around for a recipe.  One of the most common forms of moussaka is the one from Greece.  It is made up of layers of eggplant, tomatoes, and ground meat topped with a creamy sauce.  I looked around at a few other recipes and decided to lean more towards the Lebanese form of the dish and eliminated the creamy sauce and ground meat.  You most certainly can add ground beef or turkey into this dish if you want and you can serve it over whatever grain you have on hand.

Moussaka Over Toasted Millet

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  • 1 large eggplant
  • olive oil
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 lb of grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup millet
  • 2 cups water

1.  Slice the eggplant into large rounds.  Lay out a single layer of paper towels and sprinkle with a little sea salt.  Place eggplant rounds on top of the paper towels and sprinkle with more sea salt.  Place another layer of paper towels on top of the eggplant and let sit for about 15 minutes

2.  While eggplant is sitting, preheat oven to 450 and  put a large saute pan over medium high heat.  Place the 1 cup of dried millet into the pan and toast until golden brown and fragrant.  Move the toasted millet to a pot and cover with 2 cups of water.  Bring to a boil and then cover and lower to a simmer.  Cook for about 20 minutes and then fluff with a fork.

3.  Lightly brush eggplant off and cut into cubes.  Place on a baking sheet and add a little olive oil and toss to coat.  Roast the eggplant in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Once edges are brown, remove from oven and lower heat to 350.

4.  In the same large saute pan you used for millet, heat a little oil and saute the onion for a few minutes until it is soft.  Add in garlic then stir in tomatoes, salt, and other spices.  Add about a 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil.  Lower to a simmer for about 5 minutes.  Turn off heat and stir in eggplant.  Take the moussaka and place it into a large casserole dish and cover with foil.  Cook in oven for 15 minutes then remove foil and cook for 20 minutes.  Serve over a bed of the cooked and toasted millet

I know it seems like this takes forever to make, but it actually goes pretty quickly.  Plus, it doesn’t use that many ingredients and most of them you probably have on hand.   This makes some excellent leftovers and you can even eat it cold the next day.  If you wanted to add meat just make sure to brown it first before adding it with everything else.  You could also add in extra vegetables like green pepper or zucchini and beans like chickpeas if you wanted.  Enjoy!

How To Cook With Eggs

/ ktbuchs87

Egg_colours

Ah, the humble egg.  At first glance it doesn’t really seem all that spectacular.  Most of the time we just relegate it to breakfast foods or as an ingredient for delicious baked goods.  Sure, it has gotten some press over the years.  Yolks, good or bad?  How many should you eat a day?  Are egg whites really a health food?  What came first, the chicken or the egg?  I’m not here to debate any of those things with you, as intriguing as they may be.  What I do want to talk about is how versatile and awesome the egg can be.  I love eggs.  I love all the things that you can do with them.  I make them every day and sometimes for multiple meals.  They are relatively inexpensive, and they can do so many delicious things.  Eggs are a huge part of my healthy diet and I wanted to share some of the ways I use them.  I know some of you don’t consume eggs for various reasons, and that is totally fine.  I have never had a problem with eggs and if you are looking for some quick and tasty meals to eat during the week then keep reading.

I’ll start with the very obvious choice for egg based meals, breakfast.  I have one every morning and it’s one of my favorite breakfast foods, after waffles/pancakes of course!  If you want something super simple, try a poached or fried egg.  I know that you might think poaching an egg is difficult and for awhile I was intimidated too.  But it is actually quite easy.  In a small saucepan, bring about an inch or two of water to a simmer (NOT boiling).  Add a tsp or two of apple cider vinegar or just plain vinegar (this adds a little flavor and helps keep the whites together).  Crack open your egg and drop it into a small bowl or ramekin, not directly into the water.  Slowly pour your egg into the simmering water and cover with a lid.  Cook for 3-5 minutes depending on how runny you want your yolk.  Uncover and using a slotted spoon lift the egg out of the water and onto your plate.  It might take you a few tries to get it just right, but once you do it’s really easy.  Poached eggs are delicious on their own, but they can add so much more to other meals.  Try them on top of hashed browns, cooked greens (like kale or collard), over pasta, or even on top of tortilla shells.  One of Adam and I’s favorite meals is shakshuka, which is basically eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce.

Eggs are also good scrambled or in an omelette and these meals allow you to be really creative.  Add in vegetables like green peppers or mushrooms, leftover meat like shredded pork or rotisserie chicken, beans or other grains like millet.  Experiment with different seasonings too like fresh basil or cilantro.  Smoked paprika adds a nice meaty touch to eggs and italian herbs go well too.  Don’t worry if you aren’t a pro at making omelettes, if you mess up they just turn into scrambled eggs!

Another meal that I like to make, and Adam loves to eat, is a frittata.  This is like an egg pie and you can add whatever you would like to it.  I’ve posted a recipe for a potato frittata before.  One of my new favorite ways to make this meal is to take a few potatoes, peel them and cut the into bite sized chunks.  Place them in a pot and cover with water, bring them to a boil and then cover with a lid and let them simmer for about 30 minutes.  Once you can easily pierce them with a fork, drain the water move them to a bowl and lightly mash them.  You don’t want mashed potatoes, but you want them to be broken up.  Place that aside to cool and crack 5 to 6 eggs into a separate bowl.  Add a splash of unsweetened almond milk (or whatever milk you drink) and whatever herbs or spices you like (I usually do salt and pepper and then basil and oregano).  I sometimes also add in pumpkin puree or tomatoes.  Whisk the eggs until they are light and fluffy. Heat the oven to 400 and then heat an oven safe skillet, like cast iron, over medium heat, pour the egg mixture over  the potatoes and then pour into the heated pan.  Cook on the stovetop for a few minutes and then transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes and then slice it up like pie.  You can eat it plain or serve it with salsa or guacamole or hummus or whatever other toppings you would like.  It’s an easy peasy meal that fills you up and keeps you going!

You can also hard boil eggs and make a few other meals with them.  I like plain hard boiled eggs as a quick snack and Adam likes to mash them up with dill and mustard for a little egg salad.  I’ve made healthy deviled eggs in the past by hard boiling eggs, cutting them in half and mashing the yolks up with avocado and paprika before spooning back into the egg halves.  That is a quick and easy appetizer that will keep people happy!  You can also put hard boiled eggs in your salad or over pasta for a little something extra.

Eggs can even be used to make condiments!  One of the easiest is to make your own mayonnaise.  Now I am not a mayo fan, never have been, but Juli over at PaleOMG has a really easy 30 second mayo that looks pretty tasty.

As you can see, eggs are a SUPER versatile food that can be used for so many different things.  Next time you are scrambling (ha, see what I did there?) for a quick and healthy meal that will satisfy your hunger, try eggs.  Get creative and see what delicious things you can come up with!

Tarka Dhal

/ ktbuchs87

I never expected to like Indian food.  Growing up, we had never tried any Indian dishes and it was something that just wasn’t on my radar.  Once I started to change how I ate, I branched out and tried a variety of different types of cooking and I started making a few simple Indian dishes.  Yum!  I love the way that most Indian dishes focus on the spices rather than the main bulk of the ingredients.  Most recipes start working with the flavor of the dish before they start adding in the main ingredients.  The way most people cook is to season their food later in the cooking process, almost as an afterthought.  One of my favorite Indian dishes is tarka dhal.  It’s simply cooked lentils that are garnished with spices.  My version is kind of like the comfort food version of this particular dish and will make you feel all good inside.  If you have never cooked/eaten Indian food before, have no fear!  This meal is simple and tasty.  The ingredient list may look long, but it’s mostly spices and things that you probably already have on hand.  Give this yummy tarka dhal a whirl and let me know what you think!

Tarka Dhal

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  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped finely
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds (you can also use yellow)
  • 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup red lentils (or whatever variety you have on hand)
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 1/3 cup water
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
  • 4 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 tsp garam masala (you can find this at most grocery stores, if not use curry powder)
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder

1.  In a large pan, heat olive oil over high heat and add onions.  Saute for about 3 minutes and then add in the mustard seeds.  Cover the pan with a lid and cook until the seeds start to pop.

2.  Take off the lid and add in the garlic, fenugreek seeds, ginger, and salt.  Mix together and then add lentils, tomato paste and water.  Bring this to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes

3.  Stir in the tomatoes, lemon juice, and cilantro.  Simmer for another 4 to 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the 1/2 cup coconut milk.  Remove lentils to a serving dish.

4.  In the same pan you just cooked the lentils in, heat a little more oil over high heat for a a minute or so.  Turn off the heat and stir in the garam masala and chili powder.  Pour this spice mixture over the lentils just before serving.

This is a really good meal to introduce someone to Indian food because these flavors aren’t too overpowering and it is a relatively simple dish.  Make a huge batch and freeze some for meals later or use for lunches for the week.  Enjoy!

How To Eat More Vegetables

/ ktbuchs87

Fruit-vegetables

I can bet that you have been told that you need to eat more vegetables.  It seems to be the first thing that comes out of peoples mouths when anything remotely close to eating healthier is mentioned.  Eat more fruits and vegetables!  In all honesty, it’s good advice even if it tends to be overstated.  The problem is that the advice stops there.  We’re told to eat more vegetables but not necessarily how to do it.  A lot of people have bad associations with vegetables.  Some were forced to eat them as kids or were served mushy tasteless dishes that made them believe all vegetables taste the same, gross.  Maybe you want to eat more vegetables but you have no clue how to go about doing that.  My post today is going to focus on simple ways  to incorporate more vegetables into your meals.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, tasteless, or boring and the more that you eat vegetables the more you will come to love them as much as I do!

Roast Them Up

This is my absolute favorite way to prepare vegetables.  It’s an amazing way to add great flavor to your vegetables and it works on virtually any vegetable.  I roast everything from sweet potatoes to zucchini, cabbage and beets.  If I can slice it up and add a little olive oil to it, I can roast it.  If you have a hard time enjoying the taste of vegetables, this cooking method is for you.  Simply preheat your oven to 400-425 and prepare a baking pan with a piece of parchment paper or a Silpat.  Then take your vegetable and cut it up into bite size chunks and place them in a large bowl.  Add a few tablespoons of oil (I alternate between olive oil and coconut oil) and whatever seasonings you like (try Italian blends, curry powder, garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, or even just salt and pepper) and mix everything together.  Arrange the vegetables in a single layer on the pan and roast for 20-45 minutes depending on the vegetable you are using.  I usually rotate the pan halfway through the cooking process.  Once you start to get a nice brown edge, your vegetables are done!  You can eat them as is, add to salads, or stir fry’s.  Roasted vegetables also keep really well in the fridge and make great leftovers.

Make Soup or Stew

Soup is another easy way to get in more vegetables as well as large quantities of vegetables.  You can add vegetables to any soup you’re making and bulk it up with extra nutrition and flavor.  You could puree a variety of root vegetables, like sweet potatoes or parsnips, and after you have roasted them, add either broth or water or even almond milk to make a creamy soup.  Or you could blend up a variety of vegetables from your garden like tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini and make a refreshing gazpacho on a hot summer day.

Sauces and Dips

This is another favorite way to add more vegetables to my meals.  Make sauces and dips out of them!  You can make a simple homemade salsa with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and cilantro.  Or maybe you’re a guacamole fan.  Try making your own homemade spaghetti sauce and besides the tomatoes, add in zucchini and carrots.  You can even make creamy sauces with cauliflower or try a vegetable based spread like baba ghanoush.  Kids especially like dipping things in sauces and this is a really good way to get a little extra nutrition into their meal without fighting over broccoli.

Drink Them

While I think that juicing is a great thing, I am also a big fan of eating my meals.  But I know that for some people juicing their vegetables is what works best for them due to time constraints or they really can’t handle the taste of eating vegetables.  If this sounds like you, try juicing your vegetables or adding them to smoothies.  Leafy greens are very easy to add into your drinks and as long as you add some fruits like apples or pears, you don’t have to feel like you’re drinking grass.  If you have a juicer, you can juice pretty much any vegetable quickly.  I like the combination of carrots, beets, spinach, apples, and a little bit of ginger, but get creative and see what flavors you like.  Remember though, if you can, it’s better to eat your vegetables so that you can get all the fiber and nutrients that fruit and vegetables have to offer.  Sometimes, just drinking juice can leave you feeling hungrier sooner than eating those same foods would have.

Salads

I know this one sounds obvious and is probable one of the least favorite ways for people to get their vegetables in but salads don’t have to be boring or taste yucky.  There are so many ways to spruce up a salad, like adding more vegetables, dried fruits, nuts or seeds, herbs, and topping it all with homemade dressing.  Salads are a great way to get in a TON of vegetables into one meal as well as a great way to use up all the odd leftovers you have in your fridge.  Start with a base of some type of leafy green (think outside the romaine and iceberg box and try kale, arugala, collard, watercress, or spinach), and add whatever you want.  Try leftover cooked chicken or fish, roasted sweet potatoes or cauliflower, raw almonds or pistachios, dried (and unsweetened) cranberries or goji berries, add pumpkin or sunflower seeds for a little extra crunch.  And the dressing options are endless and just as simple to make.  Give salads a chance and you might just fall in love with them.

Eating more vegetables shouldn’t make you want to run screaming to your nearest bakery and shove as many donuts as you can into your mouth.  Incorporating these healthy foods into your meals is simple and only takes a little bit of effort and creativity.  So now that you know what to do, go eat your vegetables!

vegetables